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The Killing Songs

Music I Find So Annoying, it Almost Makes Me Want to Kill the Musicians

It’s rare that mere music can upset me, but when it does, things become dangerous. Even though almost all of popular music conveys sentiments and emotions that I’ve never felt and never wish to feel, somehow I’m able to remain tolerant. I try to be a peaceful man, but every so often a song will come along that fairly pleads for a violent reaction. Certain songs are unforgivable. There is no plausible rationale for their existence. They beg the listener to wreak vengeance on the cruel, evil tricksters who cared so little about our feelings that they willed such hurtful songs into being.

These “killing songs,” as I call them, convey emotions which are so repellent to me that I nearly feel obligated to end the lives of the musicians who inflicted them on me. For legal reasons, I need to remind you that this is all “funny talk,” and that I really don’t intend to bash these musicians’ skulls, nor would I ever encourage anyone else, through direct instruction or vague suggestion, to do my dirty work for me. But I still think it’s within the parameters of my free-speech rights to insist that it’d be a better world if I were allowed to kill them. That’s all I’m saying, really.

I’m sure your list is different from mine. Different music tortures different people. Back in my Boy Scout days, I had a friend who couldn’t get “Kung Fu Fighting”—the song he hated most—out of his head for two weeks. I knew a girl whose loathing for “Who Let the Dogs Out?” was so fulsome, she’d get upset if you even mentioned the title, so I made a point of not only mentioning it, but of downloading the MP3 and torturing her with it.

“Keep on Lovin’ You” by REO Speedwagon

If such indiscretions were legal, I’d really like to roll up my sleeves and personally beat up their singer Kevin Cronin, especially the way he rolls the last syllables of lines in the above-mentioned power ballad:

But you didn’t lisssuuuuuuuuuuuhhhnnnnn.
And I don’t ree-mem-berrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.

Have you ever seen pictures of that big-schnozzed, poofy-curled, elfin pole-smoker dressed in aquamarine spandex pants, a black fishnet wifebeater, and suspenders? If someone were to take it upon themselves to cause him physical harm, it’s not like I’d really feel bad about it. It wouldn’t be exactly legal for somebody to smash his entire front row of teeth into a curb, but hearing about it might give me a small squirt of joy. I will never forgive what his music has done to me.

“Don’t Stop Believin’” by Journey

And everything else they ever recorded. No, I can’t even appreciate them ironically, and I’ve never met a chick who doesn’t like ’em, and I guess their lead singer IS cute, but his voice sounds like cheese doodles to me. Whenever I hear a Journey song, I see orange and taste cheese doodles. Lamebutt combos such as this are what caused a need for punk rock, pissing me off thirty years later because punk rock refuses to gently crawl into a ball and die already. I hope the Wheel in the Sky grinds Journey to death.

“Bang a Gong” by T. Rex

I absolutely refuse to get it on, and there’s no fucking way I’m banging anyone’s gong. No, Marc Bolan, you simpering, poofy-floofy poodle boy, I’d like to bang your head against a wall and “get it (your blood) on” my clothes.

“Too Late For Goodbyes” by Julian Lennon

Makes me wish Mark David Chapman had shot Julian instead.

Urban Mating Songs

There are too many to mention, so I’ll indict the entire genre. You know what I’m talking about. I don’t want to get too offensive or stereotypical here, but we both know what I’m talking about. I love black music more than the average white guy, but Urban Mating Songs are where I draw the line and begin to segregate myself. Smooth, silky slow jams. Whiny male eunuch barnyard goats bleating a surfeit of “shawty” references to the latest electronically programmed drum beats. Dumb girls gurgling dumb lyrics about their dumb boyfriends. I’m working on highly secret sonic technology that will render anyone who willingly chooses to listen to this music sterile. It has to be done.

“Everybody Hurts” by REM

Everybody who listens to this song hurts. This yowling cat-screech of a tune made me permanently incapable of ever relating to anyone’s pain again, not to mention offering them any much-needed comfort and/or succor. Michael Stipe, I wish those rumors about you having AIDS were true.